


Of Sticks and String and Steamships

by jasbo



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: Birthday Presents, Gen, Knitting, Norwegians - Freeform, knitfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-07
Updated: 2016-09-07
Packaged: 2018-08-13 15:20:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7981342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jasbo/pseuds/jasbo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An early birthday present to our beloved Whilenotwriting...she's got a bunch of things to celebrate this week, so I decided to pull the trigger early.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Sticks and String and Steamships

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Whilenotwriting](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whilenotwriting/gifts).



“Dot, don’t grip so tightly.” Gerda’s long, slender fingers hovered over the scrap of knitting in Dot’s hands. “You need to float the yarn, not yank it. Otherwise, the fabric will be bunchy.”

Dot flipped the swatch over and looked at the back of the work. It looked nothing like the sweaters Gerda had made. Dot had admired the older woman’s stranded colorwork after a hospital fund-raising fair and Gerda had offered to teach her how to create the effect.

It _looked_ easy.

It wasn’t.

Part of the problem was that Dot was trying to knit the contrasting stitches the way Gerda did all her knitting, with the yarn held in her left hand. Gerda’s left index finger twitched and looped with dizzying speed as she knit, never taking her hands from the work the way Dot had to in order to form stitches with her right. When Dot had admired the technique, Gerda had suggested she practice this way: using her right to do the bulk of the work and her left for the intermittent contrasting stitches.

“Don’t clamp your little finger in that way. Let the yarn flow over it smoothly.” Gerda took the swatch out of Dot’s hands and neatly undid half the row that Dot had just labored over. “Try again,” she said, handing the work back.

 _Easy for you to say_. But Dot obediently looped the white yarn through the fingers of her left hand and did four easy stitches with the blue yarn in her right. Carefully keeping her fingers from clawing tight, she circled her left index finger up and over the needle, drawing it through the loop and creating the next stitch.

“ _Ja_. That is better.” Dot blushed. Gerda’s approval was rare and hard-earned.

“I’ll never get good enough at this to make an entire sweater for Hugh at this rate.” Dot sighed as she rapidly knit blue stitches then stuttered almost to a stop, carefully looping white and checking to see that the float of the yarn on the wrong side of the work was not too tight, not too loose.

“Your fault for choosing such a broad-chested man, Dottie. Had you chosen the way I did, you could make garments for him much more quickly.”

Dottie giggled at that. Gerda’s husband Oscar was a compact, lean-muscled man from West Melbourne who reminded Dot more than a little of Bert. Her next few stitches were made a little faster, a little easier.

“See? You relax, and the knitting comes easier. Faster.” Tiny lines fanned out from the corners of Gerda’s eyes.

“How did you meet Oscar?” Dot asked shyly. “Australia is an awful long way from...Sweden?”

“Dot.” The final t of her name had a clean, disapproving click in Gerda’s mouth. Not unlike Miss Phryne, now that Dot thought about it. Her eyes were the same clear blue as well, though Gerda was blond. “Not Sweden. Norway.”

Coloring from embarrassment, Dot nodded.

“Stop. You’re tensing up again,” Gerda’s cool fingers closed over Dot’s left hand and gave it a shake, then returned to the sock she was making, her fingers flying. “You want to know about Oscar? Fine. I’ll tell you a story.”

Gerda’s eyes lifted from her work and settled on a framed photograph of a steamship on the wall opposite the sofa the two women sat on. Her back, as always, was ramrod straight and her fingers continued their rapid dance, not needing visual supervision. Reaching the end of one double pointed needle, she rotated the work in her hands and began on the next, raising her chin to indicate the photograph of the ship. “My father was a merchant sea captain. That was his ship, the _Dagmar_. When he went on voyages, he would always bring me or one of my siblings along with him as soon as we were old enough.”

“Did he not want to be parted from you?” Dot asked. Her father sounded sweet. A family man, like Hugh.

A tiny, wintry smile crept across Gerda’s mouth and her light blue gaze slid sideways at Dot. “No. Captain Nilsen wanted a secretary he did not have to pay. He taught us accounting on the voyages, and we kept the records of his transactions when we got to port.”

“Oh.” _Not so sweet, then_. Wide-eyed, Dot reached the end of the row and turned her work. Beginning to purl across the back side, she glanced over at Gerda’s hands and decided to try holding the yarn with her left hand. It was just a swatch, just practice. Even if it turned out looking like a dog’s breakfast, nobody would ever wear it or care. Gerda noticed and bobbed her head in a brief, approving nod.

“Father was transporting a load of fish to Britain during the war. It was a cold passage and always the fear that the Germans would target Father’s ship. Norway was technically neutral in the war, but Britain had issued an ultimatum that would have cut off our access to coal if we continued to trade with Germany. Hundreds of Norwegian vessels were sunk by the U-boats when Norway complied.”

“How awful! And your father still brought you, even with so much danger?” _The furthest thing from sweet._

Another icy smile, another sidelong look. “ _Ja_. Father did not hold with the coddling of children.”

“Oh.” Dot turned her work again and started across the front of the swatch. Her fingers seemed to be moving less clumsily than they had been before.

“Of course, by then I was eighteen. Not a child any more. Oscar was a quartermaster with the ANZAC forces, and purchased fish from my father. He claims to have fallen in love with me at first sight.” Gerda snorted at this, her smile gone half sardonic, half indulgent.

Dottie reflected privately that Oscar being smitten with Gerda on first acquaintance wasn’t all that unrealistic. She was a little like a fairy queen, even now, with her light blond hair, graceful posture, and fine features. At eighteen she must have been stunning.

“Well, that is my story. How I met Oscar, how I married him, how I now live in Australia with its strange animals and mild winters.”

“That’s hardly a story at all!” Dot protested. She wanted to know if Oscar had been fumbling and awkward with Gerda like Hugh had been with her, or reserved and proud like Inspector Robinson was with Miss Phryne. She wanted to know if he had courted and wooed her, brought her flowers, made her blush with compliments.

“That’s all the story you get today,” Gerda said, her sternness belied by a twinkle in her pale blue eyes. She nodded at Dot’s hands. “After all, it worked. I think you’re ready to cast on for that sweater.”

Dot’s eyes lowered to her swatch. Gerda was right. The distraction had done the trick. Her fingers weren’t yet moving with the speedy assurance of Gerda’s, but they were getting there. A tiny smile tugged at her lips as she thought of the pattern that would span Hugh’s broad chest and shoulders.

Honestly, the extra work was worth it.


End file.
